Improvement in refining iron and steel



PATENT OFFICE.

WILLIAM H. KIMBALL, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVE MENTYIN REFINING IRON AND STEEL.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 116,065, dated June 20,1871.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WILLIAM H. KIMBALL, of Boston, in the county ofSuffolk and State of Massachusetts, have made an invention of certainImprovements in the Process of Refin ing Iron or Steel; and do herebydeclare the following to be a full, clear, and exact descriptionthereof, sufficient to enable others to make and use the same.

My invention as herein explained consists in the employment, in properproportion, with the ordinary arbors or fluxes used in refining iron, ofthe chemical salt known as bromide of po tassium. This salt of bromideof potassium is to be employed with lamp-black or charcoal, manganese,and iron, these latter being the component elements now usually adoptedin character of the iron employed may render desirable, I make use, incombination with the above-named ingredients, of a small proportion ofcyanide of potassium, and of pulveri zed fluor-spar, to aid thefusibility of the flux, and to cause the scale to separate from thesurface of the steel.

' I am aware that the iodide of potassium has formerly been employed inthe process of refining iron, but this material is expensive, and I havefound that, in addition to being much cheaper, the bromide of potassium,(which is a difl'erent sa1t,) owing to its greater volatility, surelyand eiiectually carries ofl' the impurities of the iron and fluxes. Forthis and other reasons the steel made by the use of the bromide has beenfound to be considerably tougher and finer grained than when made by theiodide.

: Ola 5m. I cl aim Witn esses:

Enw. GRIFFITH, FRED. OURTIs.

